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242 of long continued and still increasing distress, affecting the community at large, and bearing with peculiar severity on the industrious classes, finds this conviction deeply confirmed by various statements and documentary evidence now laid before them, which clearly prove that vast numbers are incapable of obtaining, by their labour, a sufficiency of the common necessaries of life, for the support of themselves and their families." In the course of an eloquent and very impressive speech Dr. Vaughan said:—

"There never was a commercial power so powerful as that of the British empire before, or having such a command of the deep, or having such wealth at disposal for the purpose of placing the granaries of the world at its service; and yet we were the first commercial power in the world known to entertain a fear lest we should starve for want of corn. If we looked at the shores of Phoenicia, where the first great commercial cities made their appearance, Tyre and Sidon, and where all the great articles of merchandise now manufactured in Manchester and Birmingham,—were produced—why those great cities, "whose merchants were princes," never dreamt of raising corn. They never thought of starving: the deep was before them; their navy gallantly floated on its surface—although that navy consisted of small and insignificant boats compared with ours—as long as they had their navy, and bold gallant hearts within them, they knew no fear. Go to ancient Greece. The most ancient of its cities was Corinth, situated upon a little isthmus eight square miles in extent, four of which were occupied by the town, the rest was an open green upon which the people assembled for their recreation. They had no corn fields; and yet we read that Corinth maintained a commerce with all parts of the world, and with most of the cities of Europe. Go to Venice, when it bore the proud name of the ocean Rome. Why, she had not a single acre of land but what was worked up out of the sea. Yet Venice never dreamt of waking up some fine morning, and finding herself in a state of starvation for want of bread. Let us come nearer home and look at other commercial states and we find it still the same.If we come to Portugal and Spain, which successively became the great commercial powers of Europe, they never thought of such an arrangement as this; and as for those noble people the Dutch, who not only wrested their liberty from the iron grasp of a world in arms, but became respected by every power in Europe—why, it could be shown that, they did not grow corn enough for one single town. It was clear that Spain and Austria would have starved them if they could;—but then France and the rest of the world